Chapter X: Part 10

There were some queer members in the society. A wealthy solicitor, named Richard Wilson, popularly called Dick, having been to Paris, and not knowing a word of French, praised French cookery, and said that its utmost perfection was seen in the way in which they dished up a 'rendezvous'; he meant a _ris de veau_. Being asked if he ate partridge in France, Dick said 'Yes,' but he could not bear them served up in 'shoes'; he meant _perdrix aux choux_. William Taylor, another member, believed firmly that Stonehenge was formed by an extraordinary shower of immense hailstones which fell two thousand years ago. The society, we know, claimed to be a literary society, and had actually offered a prize of L400 for the best comedy. It had many dramatic authors among its members. One of them was Cobb, who, among other plays, wrote 'Ramah Drug'--drug or droog meaning in India, where the scene was laid, a hill-fort;[#] he was complimented by his fellow-members on the happy titles he always chose for his pieces. 'What could be better for your last attempt to ram a drug down the public throat than "Ramah Drug"?' said one of the Beefsteakers. But Arnold, a rival dramatist, disputed Cobb's claim to admiration on this account. 'What worse title,' said he, 'could he have chosen for his "Haunted Tower"? Why, there is no spirit in it from beginning to end!'

[#] The tower known as Severndroog on Shooter's Hill commemorates the taking of the fort of that name on the coast of Malabar.

When the Beefsteak Society was broken up in 1869, the pictures of the former members, mostly copies, were sold for only about L70. The plate, however, brought high prices; the forks and table-spoons, all bearing the emblem of the club, a gridiron, fetched about a sovereign apiece; the punch-ladle realized L14 5s.; a cheese-toaster brought L12 6s.; an Oriental punch-bowl, L11 15s. Wine-glasses, engraved with the gridiron, sold for from 27s. to 34s. a pair. The actual gridiron, plain as it was, fetched 5-1/2 guineas. Eulogies have been written on the society, as if it had been a really meritorious institution, and endless anecdotes are told, chiefly illustrating the gluttony of the members; but such details are neither attractive in themselves nor profitable to the reader, and we will not enter into them. We agree with Thackeray's estimate of the club-life of the last century: 'It was too hard, too coarse a life.... All that fuddling and punch-drinking, that club and coffee-house boozing, reduced the lives and enlarged the waistcoats of the men of that age.' But such were the convivial clubs of the past; it is as well to see the other side of things.

Addison, in support of his assertion that all clubs were founded on eating and drinking, says that the Kit-Kat Club itself is said to have taken its original from mutton-pies. If he means its name, he is, as far as can now be known, right; but if he means that its object was the consumption of pies, as the consumption of steaks was that of the 'Sublime' Beefsteaks, he was wrong. The Kit-Kat was the great Whig club of Queen Anne's time; it consisted of the principal noblemen and gentlemen who had opposed the arbitrary measures of James II., and was instituted about the year 1700 for the purpose ostensibly of encouraging literature and the fine arts, but really for promoting loyalty and allegiance to the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover. Among the forty-eight members were the Dukes of Marlborough and Newcastle; the Earls of Halifax, Dorset, and Wharton; Sirs Robert Walpole, John Vanbrugh, Richard Steele, Samuel Garth, Godfrey Kneller; Addison, Congreve, Pulteney, Walsh, and other persons, illustrious for rank or talent.

The real founder of the club is said to have been Jacob Tonson, the bookseller; he was for many years their secretary, and, in fact, the very pivot upon which the society revolved. Their meetings were originally held at a house in Shire Lane, close to Temple Bar, a lane which in time became infamous as the resort of thieves, rogues, and ruffians of every kind, though in previous years it had been fashionable. The house where they met was kept by one Christopher Katt, a pastrycook, famous for his mutton pies, which immortalized his name, since they became known by it, Kit being then a vulgar abbreviation of Christopher, and Katt being his surname, and from these pies the club took its name, the pies always forming part of its bill of fare. It seems strange that with so simple a derivation the origin of the name Kit-Kat should have been unknown even to Pope or Arbuthnot--it is uncertain to whom the lines are attributable--who wrote:

'Whence deathless Kit-Kat took his name
Few critics can unriddle:
Some say from pastrycook it came,
And some from Cat and Piddle.
From no trim beans its name it boasts,
Grey statesmen or green wits,
But from this pell-mell pack of toasts,
Of old Cats and young Kits.'

Surely the name is simply that of the pastrycook, Kit (Christopher) Katt, given to his pies, and has no reference to old cats or young kits or kittens.

As regards the pies, Dr. King, in his 'Art of Cookery,' wrote:

'Immortal made as Kit-Kat by his pies;'

and in the prologue to 'The Reformed Wife,' a comedy, 1700, is the line:

'A Kit-Kat is a supper for a lord.'

Tonson had his own and the portraits of all the members painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller; each member gave him his.[#] The canvas was 36 inches by 28 inches, sufficiently long to show a hand, and the size is still known as the Kit-Kat. There were forty-two of those portraits, and they were first hung up in the club-room, but Tonson in time removed them to his country-house at Barn Elms, where he built a handsome room for their reception, and where the club frequently met. At his death in 1736, Tonson left them to his great-nephew, also an eminent bookseller, who died in 1767. The paintings were then removed to the house of his brother at Water-Oakley, near Windsor, and on his death to the house of Mr. Baker, one of the sons of Sir William Baker, who had married the elder of the two daughters of old Tonson; the house of this Mr. Baker is called the Park, situate at Hertingfordbury, where they still remain.

[#] They were all engraved in mezzotinto by the younger Faber.

As regards the room at Barn Elms referred to above, Sir Richard Phillips, in his 'Morning Walk from London to Kew,' in 1816, gives an account of his visit to it.

'A lane,' he says, 'brought me to Barn Elms, where now resides a Mr. Hoare, a banker, of London. The family were not at home, but on asking the servants if that was the house of Mr. Tonson, they assured me, with great naivete, that no such gentleman lived there. I named the Kit-Kat Club as accustomed to assemble here, but the oddity of the name excited their ridicule, and I was told that no such club was held there; but perhaps, said one to the other, the gentleman means the club that assembles at the public-house on the common.... One of them exclaimed: "I should not wonder if the gentleman means the philosopher's room." "Aye," rejoined his comrade, "I remember somebody coming once before to see something of this sort, and my master sent him there." I requested, then, to be shown to this room, distinguished by so high an appellation, when I was conducted across a detached garden and brought to a handsome erection in the architectural style of the early part of the last century, evidently the establishment of the Kit-Kat Club! ... The man unfastened the decayed door of the building, and showed me the once elegant hall filled with cobwebs, a fallen ceiling, and accumulated rubbish. On the right the present proprietor had erected a copper, and converted one of the parlours into a wash-house. The door on the left led to a spacious and once superb staircase, now in ruins, presenting pendant cobwebs that hung from the lofty ceiling, and which seemed to be deserted even by the spiders.... I ascended the staircase; here I found the Kit-Kat Club-room nearly as it existed in its days of service. It was about 18 feet high, 40 feet long, and 20 wide. The mouldings and ornaments were in the most superb fashion of the day, but the whole was tumbling to pieces from the effects of the dry rot.... The marks and sizes [of the portraits] were still visible, and the numbers and names remained as written in chalk for the guide of the hanger.... On rejoining Mr. Hoare's man in the hall below ... he told me that his master intended to pull [the room] down.... Mr. Tonson's house had a few years since been taken down.'

In 'A Pilgrimage from London to Woolstrope,' communicated to the _Monthly Magazine_ of June, 1818, the then home of the Kit-Kat Club pictures is thus referred to: 'I reached Hartingfordbury, and the magnificent seat of Wm. Baker, Esq.... Here I paid my homage to the forty-two portraits of the Kit Kat Club, and found myself in a splendid apartment. They [the portraits] are all in as fine a condition as though they had been painted but last year. I regretted, however, that the characteristic features are lost or disguised by the enormous perukes which disfigured the human countenance in their age. The whole looked like a wiggery, and the portrait of Tonson in his velvet cap was the only relief afforded by the entire assemblage.'

But even the Kit-Kat Club in time

'Descended from its high politic flavour,
Down to a sentimental toasting savour.'
_Byron improved_.

The club was invaded by a spirit of gallantry. When a number of fashionable gentlemen meet, politics are all very well for a time; horses will afford the next subject of entertainment, but the women must come in in the end. And so the members of the Kit-Kat Club established the custom of every year electing some reigning beauty as a toast. To the queen of the year the members wrote epigrammatic verses, which were etched with a diamond on the club glasses, or a separate bowl was dedicated to her worship, and the lines engraved thereon. Some of the most celebrated of the toasts had their pictures hung up in the club-room. How Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, when only eight years old, was introduced and declared the beauty of the year, has often been told. Of course, to our more refined ideas of propriety the conduct of her father, the Duke of Kingston, in thus thrusting his infant daughter into the society of his roistering boon-companions, cannot but appear as highly reprehensible. Among the more celebrated of the toasts were the four daughters of the Duke of Marlborough: Lady Godolphin, Lady Sunderland, generally known as the Little Whig, Lady Bridgewater, and Lady Monthermer. Swift's friend, Mrs. Long, and the niece of Sir Isaac Newton were two others. Others were the Duchesses of Bolton, St. Albans, Richmond and Beaufort; also Lady Molyneux, who, Walpole says, died smoking a pipe.

We will conclude our account of this club with a few stray notes.

Three o'clock in the morning seems to have been no uncommon hour for the club to break up. Addison and Steele usually got drunk, so did Dr. Garth, the poet laureate of the club, wherefore a Tory lampooner said that at this club the youth of Anne's reign learned

'To sleep away the days, and drink away the nights.'

When Tonson had gone to live at Barn Elms, the members generally held their meetings at his house. In the summer they would resort to the Upper Flask tavern, near Hampstead Heath; but this practice did not continue long: there was too much difficulty in getting home after strong potations. The Upper Flask eventually became a private house, and was occupied by George Steevens, the celebrated critic and antiquary, till his death. The Kit-Kat Club died out before the year 1727, and we now take leave of it.

We have given accounts of a purely convivial, of a literary and artistic, and now will shortly describe a purely political club, of which, however, but little is known, namely, the Rota. It took its name from its object, namely, to promote the changing of certain Members of Parliament annually by rotation. It held its meetings at the Turk's Head, otherwise known as Miles' Coffee-house, in New Palace Yard, not far from the residence of James Harrington, which was in the Little Ambry (Almonry), looking into the Dean's yard. It was founded in 1659 for the dissemination of republican ideas, which Harrington had glorified in his 'Oceana,' and for resisting Cromwell's attempt to do without a Parliament and to establish an undisguised military despotism. The republicans took the alarm, and formed themselves into a debating society, says the Royalist Anthony Wood, to discuss the best form of government. Their discourses, according to this author, of ordering a commonwealth were the most ingenious and smart ever heard, for the arguments in the Parliament House were flat to these. This gang had a balloting box ... the room was every evening very full. Beside James Harrington and Henry Nevil, who were the prime men of the club, were Cyriac Skinner, Major Wildman, Roger Coke, author of the 'Detection of the Four Last Reigns,' William Petty and Maximilian Petty, and a great many others. The doctrines were very taking, and the more so because to human foresight there was no possibility of the King's return. The greatest of the Parliament men hated this rotation and balloting, as being against their power. Henry Nevil proposed it to the House; the third part of the House should vote out by ballot every year, and not be re-eligible for three years to come, so that every ninth year the Senate would be wholly changed. No magistrate was to continue above three years, and all were to be chosen by a sort of ballot. It is probable that Milton was a member of the Rota; Aubrey belonged to it in 1659. After the death of Cromwell the Rota gave great publicity to its proceedings, and acquired a high reputation for learning, talent, and eloquence, so that it became a question whether it were more honourable to belong to the Rota or the Society of Virtuosi, which had been designated by Boyle in 1646 'the Invisible or Philosophical Society.' The members of the Rota threw into the teeth of their rivals that they had an excellent faculty of magnifying a louse and diminishing a commonwealth. Charles II., who was a virtuoso himself, avenged this taunt by erecting, in 1664, the Virtuosi into the Royal Society, by dispersing the members of the Rota, and exiling Harrington for life to the island of St. Nicholas, near Plymouth; but he was afterwards released on bail, and died at his house in the Almonry in 1677. The statement that the Royal Society was established for political reasons, though it has often been contradicted, would thus seem not to be without foundation. In the third canto of the second part of 'Hudibras,' Sidrophel is said to be

'... as full of tricks,
As Rota-men of politicks.'

*XIX.*

*HAMPTON COURT PALACE AND ITS MASTERS.*

*I.--HAMPTON COURT PALACE.*

The environs of London are very beautiful, and full of scenic and architectural contrasts. Let us render our exact meaning clear by taking two of the most striking contrasts. To the north of London lies the vast expanse of Hampstead Heath, a locality famous for charms due to Nature alone, whilst to the south of London we have Hampton Court, which all the arts of the highest civilization and noblest genius have for centuries striven to invest with a grandeur and loveliness found in few other spots. Painting and sculpture, architecture and horticulture, have here found their grandest exponents, and Time, which alone could do it, has added thereto the dignity of historic interest and the fascination of romantic associations. Not only are the rooms and halls, the corridors and courtyards of the palace, artistic caskets in themselves, they are filled with treasures of art. And how easily can imagination re-people these now usually deserted chambers and passages, and with the mind's eye see again the famous--and sometimes infamous--men who here disported themselves, the charming lovely--and sometimes the reverse--women, whose dazzling beauty, lofty demeanour, dangerous and bewitching glances, led those men to fortune or the scaffold. But that imagination may do this, not only is an accurate knowledge of the localities needed, but also of the historic occurrences which have taken place therein, wherefore our account of Hampton Court Palace, which we have undertaken to give in a necessarily condensed form, will after describing the structure architecturally record, briefly also, the events it has been the scene of.

We assume the local position of the Palace to be sufficiently well known, and therefore not necessary to be described. It has, not inappropriately, been called the St. Cloud of Londoners. In the time of Edward the Confessor Hampton Manor belonged to Earl Algar, a powerful Saxon nobleman, and its value then was estimated at L40 per annum. After the Norman Conquest it is mentioned in Doomsday Book as held by Walter de St. Valeri, who probably gave the advowson of the living to the Priory of Takeley, in Essex, which was a cell to the Abbey of St. Valeri, in Picardy; from the port adjoining it William the Conqueror sailed for England. Hampton Manor subsequently became the property of Sir Robert Gray, whose widow in 1211 left by her will the whole manor and the manor-house of Hampton, the site of the present Hampton Court Palace, to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, whose chief residence in England was the Hospital of St. John, Clerkenwell, and of which now nothing but the gate remains. The manor thus bequeathed was of enormous extent. It comprised within its boundaries the lesser manors of Kingston-on-Thames, Walton Legh, Byflete, Weybridge, East and West Moulsey, Sandon, Weston, Innworth, Esher, Oatlands, together with the manors of Hampton, Hanworth, Feltham, Teddington, and even Hounslow Heath.

Tradition says that Cardinal Wolsey, at the summit of his power, was desirous of building a palace suitable to his rank; but he was equally desirous of enjoying health and long life, and employed the most eminent physicians in England, and even called in the aid of learned doctors from Padua, to select the most healthy spot within twenty miles of London. They agreed that the parish of Hampton was the most healthy soil, and the springs in Coombe Wood, south of Richmond Park, the purest water within the limits assigned to their researches. Upon this report the Cardinal bargained for a lease with the prior of St. John of Jerusalem, and the following is a precis of the lease as still extant in the Cottonian MS. in the British Museum, and first published in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for January, 1834.

The indenture was made between Sir Thomas Docwra, prior of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem and his brethren knights of the one part, and Cardinal Wolsey, Primate of England, of the other part. It granted a lease of ninety-nine years, to date from January 12, 1514, to Cardinal Wolsey at a yearly rent of L50, the lessee agreeing to the usual covenants of a repairing lease. If the rent should remain unpaid during two whole years, the lessors to have the right of re-entry, and a new lease to be granted for another ninety-nine years should such be desired by the lessee. The lessors did not foresee the future, which would, by _force majeure_, put an end to all their lease-granting.

As soon as Wolsey had obtained the lease, he pulled down the old manor-house, in which hitherto a prior and a few knights had been accommodated, and began erecting in a style of grandeur, heretofore unsurpassed in this country, a mansion of unparalleled magnificence. But who was this Wolsey?

A most unmitigated villain, on a par with that other villain, Henry VIII., whose master, through being his pimp, he was for a time, till, in perfect accordance with his character, he became his abject whining slave. I am well aware that it is not usual to apply such a term as villain to a King or his chief adviser--courtly historians have flowery terms for the crimes of Kings by the 'grace of God,' and holy 'Fathers-in-God,' who misuse the powers foolish nations have entrusted them with to the vilest purposes--but the spirit of justice, which directs thinking and logical minds, rejects the flimsy arguments of sycophantic apologists; it will not have Nero whitewashed.

Thomas Wolsey was born at Ipswich in March, 1471. He was the son of a butcher, who also possessed some land, and was sufficiently well off to send his son to the University of Oxford. In those days the chief and easiest avenue to distinction, office, and wealth was through the Church, and Thomas appears to have been an apt scholar, for at fourteen years of age he was Bachelor of Arts, and thence was called the Boy Bachelor. He soon after became Master of Arts, and had charge of the school adjoining Magdalen College, where he educated the three sons of Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, who presented him in 1500 to the rectory of Lymington. This was indeed a rapid rise for the son of a butcher. But he had not long resided on his benefice when Sir Amias Paulet, a justice of the peace, set him in the stocks for being drunk and making a disturbance at a fair in the neighbourhood. Wolsey was mean enough to take a cruel revenge for this punishment, which, no doubt, he richly deserved, and which must at the time have been approved by the community, for it was no trifling thing in those days to set a rector in the stocks. When Wolsey was Lord Chancellor he sent for Sir Amias, and after a severe jobation confined him for six years in that part of the Temple which long passed for Henry VIII. and Wolsey's palace, and afterwards was Nando's, a famous coffee-house. Wolsey compelled Paulet to almost entirely rebuild the house. When Wolsey's patron, the Marquis of Dorset, died, the former looked out for new means to push his fortunes, for his avarice was boundless. He accordingly got himself admitted into the family of Henry Dean, Archbishop of Canterbury; but that prelate dying in 1502, he found means of ingratiating himself with Sir John Nanfan, treasurer of Calais, who being weakened by age and other infirmities, committed the direction of his post to Wolsey, who by his recommendation was made one of the King's chaplains, and in 1506 was instituted to the rectory of Redgrave, in the diocese of Norwich. But it was on the accession of Henry VIII. that he had the opportunity of developing his ambitious and covetous schemes by the vilest means. He recommended himself to the King's favour by adapting himself to his capricious temper and vicious inclinations, acting as his pimp, and participating in all his debaucheries. And so well did he play his cards with the King that shortly after the attainder of Sir Richard Empson--executed with his coadjutor Dudley in 1510, nominally for extortion, but really because that extortion was not practised on the King's behalf, but on their own--shortly after this attainder the King conferred on Wolsey a grant of several lands and tenements in the parish of St. Bride's, Fleet Street, which by the knight's forfeiture devolved to the Crown. In the grant Wolsey is styled counsellor and almoner to the King. In the same year he was presented by his royal master to the rectory of Torrington, in the diocese of Exeter. Early in the following year he was made a Canon of Windsor and Registrar of the Order of the Garter. In 1512 he was advanced by Archbishop Bambridge to the prebend of Bugthorp, in the church of York, of which afterwards he also was made a Dean. In 1513 he attended the King in his expedition to France, who committed to him the direction of the supplies and provisions to be made for the army--a profitable concession, which Wolsey knew how to turn to his own good account. On the taking of Tournay Henry VIII. made Wolsey Bishop of that city, and not long after Bishop of Lincoln. In 1814, on the death of Cardinal Bambridge, he was translated to the Archbishopric of York. The utter recklessness with which the King bestowed on one man so many high offices, the duties of which from their very multiplicity must be totally neglected by this one man, this recklessness in the bestowal of ecclesiastical dignities and emoluments on an upstart whose moral character was of the vilest in every respect, and openly known to be such, was only equalled by the greed and vanity of the recipient. But Fortune had greater favours yet in store for him. In September, 1515, he was, by the interest of the two Kings of England and France, made Cardinal of St. Cecilia, and in December of the same year Lord Chancellor of England, which dignity had been resigned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who resented the arrogance of, and the powers conferred on, Wolsey. The Archbishop's resignation led to the retirement of all the other great officers of the Crown, and thus Wolsey became absolute master of the situation, and whilst he was really carrying out his own schemes, he had the address to persuade the King, jealous of his own power, that he was only blindly executing his royal master's behests and wishes. The position of England between the Emperor and the King of France rendered Henry VIII. to some extent the arbitrator of Europe. Wolsey cleverly exploited the situation; he first secured the goodwill of Francis I. of France by restoring to him, in 1516, Tournay, receiving in return an annuity of 12,000 livres. But the Pope was the most anxious to secure the Minister's friendship, and therefore, after the recall of Cardinal Campeggio, made Wolsey his Legate a Latere, or Extraordinary Envoy, which virtually raised him to the rank of Pope of England. Though Wolsey's income was already tremendous from the various bishoprics and other high offices he held, and the presents and pensions he received from foreign princes, the Pope granted him an annuity of 7,500 ducats on the bishoprics of Toledo and Placentia. With Wolsey's increase of power rose his arrogance, his covetousness, and his love of ostentation; the beggar was put on horseback. His revenues almost exceeded those of the Crown; the splendour displayed in his mode of living was greater than that of many Kings. When, after the election of Charles V. as Emperor of Germany, the latter quarrelled with Francis I., each endeavoured to draw the Cardinal to his side. In 1520 he arranged an interview between the three Sovereigns, but at last sided with the Emperor, who granted him an annuity of 7,000 ducats, and held out to him the prospect of the Papal crown. After having, in 1521, attempted at Calais a reconciliation between Henry VIII. and Francis I., he entered into a secret treaty with the Emperor, according to which the English King was to declare war against France. The death of Leo X. and the subsequent election of Hadrian VI. to the Papal dignity almost led to a breach between him and the Emperor; but the latter's promise that after old Hadrian's death he would certainly procure him the Papal crown satisfied Wolsey, especially as the Emperor added 2,500 ducats to the former annuity, and gave him besides another of 9,000 dollars in gold for his loss of the French pension. In 1522 Henry VIII. commenced the war against his former ally by entering and devastating France. Wolsey having to find money for this war, he had recourse to financial oppression, which roused the indignation of the English people. But at the new Papal election in 1523 Wolsey saw himself again passed over, which induced him to lead the King to take the part of Francis I., who was then a prisoner. Henry VIII. had to retire from the war, to enter in 1525 into an alliance with the French Regency, for which service Wolsey received a present of 100,000 crowns, and in 1528 to declare war against the Emperor. Thus the proud and blustering Henry VIII. became the mere tool of an ambitious and disappointed priest, who used him and the resources of England to avenge the slight the Emperor had put upon him at the last Papal election. After the peace of Cambray in 1529, Wolsey was on the summit of his power, but also terribly near to his fall. At first he had, from hatred of her nephew, Charles V., not opposed the King's desire to obtain a divorce from Catherine of Aragon; but when he found that the King wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, he disapproved of the divorce, as he feared that Anne's relatives might endanger his position at Court. In obedience to the King's orders, he indeed for some time urged on the suit, but grew less zealous when he found that the Pope himself, out of consideration for the Emperor, was against the divorce. Henry VIII. looked upon the delay as due to the intrigues of Wolsey, in which opinion he was strengthened by Anne Boleyn, who had a special reason to hate him, for it was through him that her marriage with young Lord Percy, a member of Wolsey's establishment, one of the many scions of the nobility who were placed under the guidance of the Cardinal, had been broken off. When Anne, who had been dismissed the Court, after her recall found it necessary to augment her rising influence over the King to dissemble, and therefore treated Wolsey with the greatest outward respect, she secretly took every opportunity to foster the dislike Henry had taken to him, and it was her underhand influence which hastened his downfall, and not reasons of statecraft, as 'philosophical' historians would have us believe. Long before the catastrophe Wolsey, who had not failed to notice that the brutal tyrant's favourable sentiments towards his minion were on the wane, had tried to conciliate the King by presenting Hampton Court to him in 1526; but the gift had not been one of love, but of fear and despair, and the chief cause of the surrender, according to tradition, was the following:

The King's fool was paying a visit to the Cardinal's fool--for both the King and the Cardinal were such fools themselves as to find pleasure in the gabbling of professional fools--and the couple went down into the wine vaults. For fun one of them stuck a dagger into the top of a cask, and, to his surprise, touched something that gave a metallic sound. The fools thereupon set to work, got the head of the cask out, and found it to be full of gold pieces. Other casks, by the sound, indicated that they held wine. The King's fool stored up the fact in his memory, and one day when the King was boasting about his wine, the fool said, 'You have not such wine as my Lord Cardinal, for he has casks in his cellar worth a thousand broad pieces each;' and then he told what he had discovered. Whether this be true or not, it is certain that Wolsey was awake to the fact that he was losing his power over the King, and so he threw him the magnificent sop of his palace, which, however, did not save him; the King was determined to be rid of him. In October, 1529, the Great Seal was demanded of him, his palace at Whitehall and all his goods were seized for the King's use, and he was ordered to retire to his palace at Esher. The King, indeed, promised Wolsey his protection, and that he should continue to hold the bishoprics of York and Winchester.

As Wolsey was travelling towards Esher, he was overtaken by a messenger from the King, who brought him that comfortable assurance, whereupon the Cardinal dismounted from his mule, knelt down, and blessed the ground on which he had received so gracious a message; and to show his gratitude to his King, he made him a present of--what do you think?--his fool. Had Wolsey in his disgrace shown any manliness or dignity of character, we might think that this present to the King was 'kinder sarcastic,' intimating that a fool was about the only individual fit to be Henry's companion, and whom he could appreciate. But from Wolsey's conduct during the closing years of his life, we cannot give him credit for so much wit and moral courage as the attempt to give the King such a hint would have implied, and we must therefore assume that the gift was a _bona fide_ one; and as in those days it was considered the proper thing for great people to associate with fools, and take delight in their forced and artificial jokes, too poor for a halfpenny comic paper of the present day, there was nothing extraordinary in the gift, and no doubt the King thought it highly complimentary to himself. But however favourably the King might at certain moments feel disposed towards Wolsey, and though, from his influence in the country as head of the Church, it was necessary to go to work cautiously, his ruin was determined on. Parliament, which, after an interval of seven years, was allowed to reassemble in 1529, impeached him by a charge of forty-four articles, relating chiefly to the exercise of his legatine power contrary to law, and the scandalous irregularities of his life. The impeachment passed the House of Lords; but when it came to the House of Commons it was effectually defeated by the energy and address of Thomas Cromwell, who had been his servant, so that no treason could be fixed upon him. He remained in his retirement at Esher until about Easter, 1530, when he was ordered to repair to his diocese of York, where, in November of the same year, he was arrested by the Earl of Northumberland for high treason, and committed to the custody of the Lieutenant of the Tower, who had orders to bring him to London. This so affected his mind that he fell sick at Sheffield, in the Earl of Shrewsbury's house, whence, by short stages, he went as far as Leicester, where he is said to have taken poison, which no one knowing his really pusillanimous character will believe; however, he died on November 29, 1530, and was buried in the Abbey of Leicester. The words attributed to him as his last utterances, that if he had served God as he had served his King, he would not be thus forsaken, were false in substance and contemptible in form. He never served the King but when it served his own purposes, and a mean-spirited coward only would have attributed his fall to such a cause. He fell most ignominiously, without even an attempt of resistance against the King's arbitrary decrees, without a struggle to reassert his former ascendancy over his royal master. But probably the ascendancy was irrecoverable; he had himself resigned it when he surrendered his palace of Hampton Court to Henry in an access of cowardly panic; and no ascendancy which is not moral or intellectual ever has any vitality in it, and that of Wolsey over the King had never been any other than that of the practised debauchee over the unpractised one. Wolsey was Henry's senior by twenty years. When the pupil had become as depraved as his teacher, he required his assistance no longer, and in moments of reflection, which come to the most frivolous, he must have felt how debased such teaching had been, and the greater its iniquity the greater the pupil's abhorrence of the instructor, whose constant presence must act as a perpetual reproach; when the orange is sucked dry, the shapeless husk becomes an offensive object to look at.

Cardinal Wolsey is credited with a love of learning and schemes to promote it, as his foundation of a college at Oxford, now Christ Church, which, however, he only partly accomplished, and his school at Ipswich. But these were not so much establishments to advance learning as to support and glorify the Church, of which he was the chief pillar and personal representative, and which therefore it was his pride and interest to strengthen and exalt, even at some personal sacrifice.

Such was the man who built the palace of Hampton Court, to the description and history of which we must now proceed.

We stated above that immediately on having entered into possession of the estate, Wolsey pulled down the ancient manor-house; early in 1515 he began the new buildings. All researches have failed to bring to light the architect employed by the Cardinal. The name of James Bettes occurs as master of the works, as also that of Nicholas Townley as chief comptroller, and that of Laurence Stubbes, paymaster of the works, and that of Henry Williams, surveyor; but probably the design of Hampton Court must be attributed to Wolsey himself, who had the examples of other mediaeval prelatic builders to guide him. In fact, we are inclined to think that the entrance to the first court was somewhat of an imitation of the centre of Esher Place, on the river Mole, a building erected by William of Waynfleet, Bishop of Winchester, in 1447. Of this building nothing now remains but the two octagonal towers of the centre, just as the gateway of Wolsey's college at Ipswich only remains, which also bears a striking resemblance to that of Esher Place.

One of the distinguishing features of Wolsey's palace at Hampton Court was that it did not present to the beholder a moat,[#] a drawbridge, or loopholes, or frowning battlements or watch-towers, without which up to that time no nobleman had thought of erecting a mansion. Wolsey, being a Churchman, naturally selected the monastic style, and the first and second courts, all that remains of Wolsey's original building, display it in all its picturesque features. At present the palace consists of three courts, the two just referred to, and the third, built by William III., comprising the buildings surrounding the Fountain Court. On the north side of the palace there are a number of minor courts and passages, around which are grouped domestic offices, stables, and other dependencies of a large mansion.

[#] In Law's 'History of Hampton Court Palace' we are told that a moat surrounded the whole of the palace, but Hollar's view of it (_temp._ Henry VIII.) shows no indication of one.

And here by way of interscript, though the reader may have seen that we hold Cardinal Wolsey's character as a Churchman in but slight estimation, we must give him credit for proofs of aesthetic culture, which was unusual in his age, when even the most affluent nobles of the land lived in a state of rude habits and surroundings. At the conclusion of the reign of Henry VII. the annual expenses of the powerful family of Percy scarcely exceeded the sum of L1,100. The furniture of even princely households was coarse and comfortless; homely plenty and stately reserve in their entertainments was the rule. The love of pomp and refined pleasure must have been acquired by Wolsey through his visits and residences abroad, and though he indulged in both from personal inclination and political purpose, yet, whatever his motive, his practice led to the amelioration of national taste and manners favourable to the growth of art and the development and advance of home industries. His palace became an example of an interior arrangement suited to liberal, polished, and dignified entertainment. It afforded hints for the improvement of domestic architecture. Till then the attainment of security had been the chief object of the builder; the times having become less turbulent, the external and internal embellishment and comfort of the mansion, no longer a mere castle, became the ruling principle, and Wolsey led the way in these improvements in the palace he built at Hampton.

Originally, as Camden and Hentzner assert, there were five courts. Camden calls them 'large' courts, and the palace is traditionally said to have extended further towards the east, but this is very doubtful; probably the ground-plan of the palace now embraces as much space as it did at any time. As stated above, it now consists of three courts; but there are several minor courts appertaining to parts of the original structure, and it is possible that Camden, when he called the courts large, had the really large ones in his mind, and that Hentzner, the German traveller, who visited England in 1598, and greatly admired all he saw amongst us, included them in his enumeration, so as to justify the eulogy he bestows on the palace. 'The rooms,' he said, 'being very numerous [there are altogether about 1,000 rooms in the palace], are adorned with tapestry of gold, silver, and velvet, in some of which were woven history pieces; in others, Turkish and Armenian dresses, all extremely natural. In one chamber are several excessively rich tapestries, which are hung up when the Queen [Elizabeth] gives audience to foreign ambassadors. All the walls of the palace shine with gold and silver. Here is likewise a certain cabinet, called 'Paradise,' where, besides that everything glitters so with silver, gold, and jewels as to dazzle one's eyes, there is a musical instrument made all of glass except the strings.... The chapel of this palace is most splendid, in which the Queen's closet is quite transparent, having its windows of crystal.... In her bedchamber the bed was covered with very costly coverlids of silk. At no great distance from this room we were shown a bed, the tester of which was worked by Anne Boleyn, and presented by her to her husband, Henry VIII.... In the hall are these curiosities: a very clear looking-glass, ornamented with columns and little images of alabaster; a portrait of Edward VI., brother to Queen Elizabeth; the true portrait of Lucretia; a picture of the battle of Pavia; the history of Christ's passion, carved in mother-of-pearl; the portrait of Mary Queen of Scots; the picture of Ferdinand, Prince of Spain, and of Philip, his son; that of Henry VIII., under which was placed the Bible, curiously written upon parchment; an artificial sphere; several musical instruments. In the tapestry are represented negroes riding upon elephants; the bed in which Edward VI. is said to have been born, and where his mother, Jane Seymour, died in childbed.' Grotius (b. 1583, d. 1645) also described it as the most splendid palace in Europe. Says he: 'If e'er a Briton what is wealth don't know, let him repair to Hampton Court, and then view all the palaces of the earth, when he will say: "Those are the residences of Kings, but this of the gods."'

The above descriptions, of course, apply to a period posterior to the occupation of the palace by Wolsey, but we shall presently see how great was its splendour in the days of the Cardinal, before the alterations made by Henry VIII., who wished as much as possible to extinguish Wolsey's memory; but the old dark-red brick walls, with still darker lines of bricks in diamond shapes running along them, the mixture of Gothic archways and square mullioned windows, the turrets and cupolas, and tall twisted and cross-banded chimneys of the first and second courts, all belong to the period of Wolsey.

Let us enter these courts.

The usual approach to the palace is from the west. Here on the right and left are seen ranges of subordinate chambers and domestic offices, which, it would seem, appear formerly to have taken a wider circuit than at present, as on Hampton Court Green are many coeval buildings, including a handsome gateway. The kitchens with their dependent offices were on the north side of the palace, where they still remain, and are provided with avenues and suitable passages, communicating with the great hall and principal rooms. The entrance to this office range is by a plain but handsome gateway in the western front, to the left of the chief gateway, which gives admittance to the first court. This gateway, built of brick, with stone embellishments, has over the portal a bay-window, adorned with the royal arms, and divided by mullioned compartments into two series of lights. This central division of the west front is flanked by octagon towers. The gateway was originally provided with fine oak gates; these were for many years put aside as lumber, but have lately been rehung, after undergoing careful repair. They are of massive dimensions, are ornamented with the usual linen-fold pattern, and are evidently of Wolsey's time. Their outer face is pierced with shot and bullet holes, which may have been occasioned during the skirmishes in the civil wars, when fighting was going on outside the palace between the Cavaliers and Roundheads, or, as has been suggested, the holes may have been made through the gates having been set up as targets for the villagers of Hampton. Before then bows and arrows were the arms used in war, but it appears that during the great rebellion the practice of archery fell into disrepute. However, at the restoration of Charles II. the noble sport was again revived; in 1682 the Finsbury archers marched to Hampton Court, and there, in front of the palace, shot for prizes. Charles II. patronized their exercise by his presence, but the day being rainy, after staying for about two hours he was obliged to quit the field. There is nothing new under the sun; a modern military commander stopped a review on account of the rain! He should have taken an example by the British workman, who scorns to carry an umbrella, whilst the foreign mason or carpenter never goes to his work without one should the day look threatening.

Through the portal just mentioned you enter the first or entrance court, which is 167 feet 2 inches from north to south, and 162 feet 7 inches from east to west. On the west side of this court is a bay-window, corresponding in character with that over the west front of the arched entrance, and, like that, enriched with the royal arms; on the turrets are placed the initials E.R. Over the portal in the centre is a bay-window of considerable beauty, with octangular towers on each side, and on the face of the towers are introduced busts of Roman emperors in terra cotta, which had been sent to Cardinal Wolsey by Leo X. On the left is seen the western end of the Great Hall, which here has a broad and richly designed window. In this court also are rooms appropriated to families who have obtained small Government pensions.

Through a groined archway, finely ornamented, we pass to the second or middle, or Clock Tower court. This court is somewhat smaller than the former, measuring 133 feet from north to south, and about 100 feet from east to west. The exterior of the buildings surrounding this court appears to have experienced little alteration since the days of the founder. The general effect of this court is superb. The eastern side comprises a third portal, flanked with octangular turrets, and is of greater richness than the preceding fronts. On the face of each turret are again introduced busts of the Caesars. Some repairs were effected in this division by George II. in 1732, as is signified by an inscription on the exterior. On the north side is the Great Hall. Wolsey had projected it; it formed so important a feature in the design of the mansion, that the exterior walls may safely be ascribed to the Cardinal, but he did not live to finish the work; the interior was not completed till 1536, by Henry VIII. It is 106 feet long, 40 wide, and 60 high. The roof is elaborately carved. There are seven large windows on one side and six on the other, with a large window at each end. A bay-window on the dais, extending from the upper part of the wall nearly to the floor, contributes greatly to the cheerful aspect of the hall. The window at the eastern end is an oriel window, divided into compartments by mullions of stone. There was formerly a lantern in the roof, but, for some reason unexplained, it was removed; the compartment, however, whence it took its springing remains. Near the east end of the hall is the withdrawing room, of noble dimensions, and displaying externally, as well as internally, more of the character of the ancient structure than any other room of equal extent throughout the palace.

A highly interesting object in this court is the astronomical clock in the tower and gateway giving access to the third court. The original clock was, according to a notice engraved on the wrought-iron framework, put up in 1540 by N.O. Who is meant by these initials is quite unknown. It was, till its removal, the oldest clock in England that kept pretty correct time. From an entry mentioned in Wood's 'Curiosities of Clocks and Watches,' we learn that a payment was made in 1575 to one George Gaver, 'serjeant painter,' 'for painting the great dial at Hampton Court Palace, containing hours of the day and night, the course of the sun and moon.' No doubt since Gaver decorated the dial-plate many clockmakers must have repaired and altered the works. In 1649 a striking part had been added to the works. In 1711 it was found that in consequence of the removal of certain wheels and pinions, probably by ignorant or careless workmen, the clock could not for a long time past have performed its functions correctly. It seems indeed to have been left neglected for many years. Somewhere in the thirties of this century G. P. R. James, the novelist, addressed a poem of eleven stanzas to the 'Old Clock without Hands at Hampton Court.' The first and last stanzas we reproduce, not for their merit, but because apposite to our subject:

'Memento of the bygone hours,
Dost thou recall alone the past?
Why stand'st thou silent midst these towers,
Where time still flies so fast?
* * * * *
'The future? Yes! at least to me
Thus plainly thus thy moral stands!
Good deeds mark hours! Let not life be
A dial without hands!'

In 1835 the works of the old clock were removed, but what became of them is not known; probably they were sold for old brass and iron. A new clock was put up, and on the removal of this in 1880 there was found this inscription on the works: 'This clock, originally made for the Queen's Palace in St. James' Park, and for many years in use there, was A.D. 1835, by command of His Majesty King William IV., altered and adapted to suit Hampton Court Palace by B. L. Vulliamy, clockmaker to the King'; and on another plate on the clock: 'Vulliamy, London, No. 352, A.D. 1799.' Vulliamy's address was 74, Pall Mall, which was then the first house at the south-western end of the street, next to the entrance-gates to Marlborough House. The motive power of this clock had evidently not been sufficient to drive in addition the astronomical dial, and the useless dial had been taken down and stowed away in a workshop in the palace, the gap left being filled by a painted board. This antiquated timepiece was entirely removed, and in 1880 a new clock erected by Messrs. Gillett and Bland, which shows not only the hours of the day and night, but also the day of the month, the motion of the sun and moon, the age of the moon, its phases and quarters, and other interesting matters connected with lunar movements. The dial is composed of three separate copper discs of various sizes, with a common centre, but revolving at various rates.

We have yet to notice on the south side of this court the colonnade, supported by Ionic columns, built by Sir Christopher Wren; the effect produced by the introduction of this classical colonnade amidst the venerable turrets and parapets of Wolsey's building is discordant and unpleasing. But William III. would have it so, and the great architect had to comply.